"Please, WEAR PANTS."

AT TCU, one of the more popular fraternities has a huge foam party every fall. It’s invite only and everyone had told me how fun it was my freshman year so I was pretty excited to do this particular year. Basically they take this old warehouse and cover it with trash bags, have heaters everywhere and a DJ elevated above the foam for everyone’s enjoyment. It was the week before Halloween so it was cold – yet everyone was decked out in beach attire. Seriously, this is why I love(d) college. You could do stupid crap like this and it was completely acceptable because we were all young and had really no responsibility at all.

The night started off with a pre-party, where a majority of the guys (and girls) get drunk and take a million pictures. Everyone runs around, mingles or plays drinking games until it’s time for the buses to leave the Greek. Once we get to the warehouse everyone gets into their “foam” attire which resulted in everything from floatation devices, snorkeling gear to straight up swimsuits. I was warned: wear bottoms. But I didn’t know what that meant… I figured it was foam so what could be the big deal, right? WRONG. So entirely wrong.

I will admit I had a blast. It was one of the best parties I ever attended in college. And since it was my sophomore year I was completely sober for all of it (I’m dead serious). We got there I think at like 8:00 and were probably the last people out of there with the exception of five. Yes, four hours dancing, slip’n’sliding and overall acting like idiots. I think it was the best because you didn’t have to care about what you looked like because everyone had foam all in their hair and on their face.

I quickly found out why people suggested I wear pants. Now, I’m not particularly keen on pants in the first place anyway (just ask my sorority sisters) but I should have listened to everyone who was advising me. I remember running back to my dorm that night before going out for late night Denny’s and realizing that my bottom was on FIRE. I had never felt this pain before and also my legs were totally rashed out. I figured it was just an allergic reaction to the foam but would quickly go away.

Well, my legs did clear up. They cleared up the very next day, actually. But I remember going to bed that night wearing a pair of velour pants only to wake up with them literally stuck to my behind. I had been ambushed by my little because it was “big-nap” meaning the newly crowned “bigs” in the sorority are pretty much tortured by being woken up at an obscene hour in the morning and taken to breakfast by their little. As I got out of bed to get ready, I remember telling Laura that I couldn’t take my pants off because they were stuck to my body. The nurse in her quickly came out and she asked me to try to remove them so she could inspect my bum. Completely mortified and in complete pain, I did so and I knew the immediate “Oh my GOD!” and laughter had to be something bad.

Turns out I danced and slipped and slided a little too much that night. I can honestly say my skin was rubbed raw. Like, imagine rug burn. They multiply that by 1000.

The solution? I had to go to the drugstore and by diaper rash cream. I mean, I don’t really know what was more embarrassing. The fact that the store clerk probably thought I had a baby or that I was buying it for my own personal use.

I became the ongoing spectacle in the Theta house – everyone was stopping by my room and to see my infamous bottom. I even had jokes that I was a literal “pain in the a$$.” Har har.

I decided to keep the joke alive every year by offering the diaper rash ointment to anyone going to that party during chapter meeting and therefore advising them something I learned from various Theta’s from PC ’03: wear pants.